Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 331: The Bane of Existence

After Jack defeated Ley Vice in such an embarrassing manner, news had no reason to spread. None of the involved parties would benefit.

However, their battle had taken place very close to the village. That was done on purpose by Ley, as she had planned to humiliate Jack, but her own sadism turned to bite her in the ass.

There werent many things to do on the Cathedral. When a battle happened, many meditating C-Grades spread out their perceptions to watch. As a result, the humiliation of Ley Vice had been witnessed by dozens of outer disciples, who quickly transmitted the news to their friends. Before long, the entire Cathedral knew what had happened.

News eventually reached Marcus William, the husband of Ley Vice. According to the Sage, this man was an infamous bully, a man who kept a grudge and enjoyed pressing his opponents into the ground. When he heard how Jack Rust had publicly humiliated his wife, claiming that he wouldnt touch her even if she begged him, flames of fury rose in his heart. He wanted to get up immediately and go teach that little D-Grade a lesson.

Unfortunately, he was at a crucial point of his cultivation, so he couldnt interrupt it mid-way. He needed a few more days. Until then

Marcus quickly sent a voice transmission. Cranxiao? I have a job for you.

***

Jack was meditating in his cabin. On the Cathedral, even this simple act was different. The Dao was dense and rich, allowing him to easily absorb it. He could spend half the effort for twice the results. His will spread to his surroundings, assimilating the surrounding Dao into the Fist and pulling it inside him, where he used it to nourish his Dao Tree.

By now, the Tree was fully formed. Its trunk rose nine feet tall, while a crown of intertwined branches and leaves covered its top. Thanks to the Life Drop buried right under it, as well as Jacks perfect foundation, the entire tree was vibrant with life, each leaf shining like amethyst. Even the little veins on them were clearly visible, pulsing with tiny streams of power.

Jack had already reached the peak D-Grade and fully formed his Dao Tree. The next step would be to make it bloom, creating tiny flowers on its branches. However, that step which sounded easy was as hard as grabbing the clouds.

The so-called Dao Blooming was a major breakthrough on the cultivation path. A large number of flowers had to bloom at the same time, which required a tremendous amount of Dao energy. The process needed to be completed in one fell swoop. If anything went wrong, the blooming would stop mid-way, and the cultivator would be stuck in a limbo between the D and C-Grades, forever unable to progress further.

For that reason, one should gather as much momentum as possible before breaking through, ensuring they had enough energy. That was a tall task. Even Jack, with his perfect foundation and vibrant Dao Tree, did not feel confident in accomplishing it. Even if he completely stuffed his tree with energy until it began to leak out, it still might not be enough. The Life Drop could not be used either, as its Dao belonged to Life, not the Fist.

Of course, the energy Jack had gathered already could be enoughit was hard to judgebut he only had one shot at this. If he rushed into it unprepared, he deserved to remain stranded at the D-Grade for the rest of his life.

The excessive demand for Dao energy was the reason why cultivators didnt typically achieve this breakthrough by themselves. They would first accumulate as much energy as they could, then gather treasures with dense and easily-digestible Dao. Throughout their breakthrough, they would gradually use up all those treasures to replenish some of their lost energy.

Unfortunately, such treasures were prohibitively rare. There were almost none of them on Earth, and even if one looked at the Merchant Alliance, such things were impossible to buy with money.

After all, credits were only useful up to the E- or early D-Grade. After that, everyone had so much money that they just didnt care. If someone came across such a treasure, they would either use it themselves or trade it for items of equal value.

Therefore, breaking into the C-Grade without the support of a powerful faction was almost impossible. Finding pure Dao treasures was one of the reasons Jack had come to the Church.

Truthfully, hed thought it would be difficult. He imagined he would have to perform missions and jobs for the Church to even have a chance at acquiring the necessary treasures.

Never did he expect to receive such a treasure as a welcoming gift. The Dao stones hed so easily acquired were pure Dao treasures!

The Church is scarily rich Jack thought with a shiver.

Dao stones were created by people at the C-Grade and above. Instead of cultivating normally, they would spend their efforts controlling the ambient Dao and painstakingly forcing it into special crystals until the Dao density inside them was extremely high. When those crystals reached saturation, a Dao stone would form. By using that Dao stone later, a cultivator could absorb the large quantity of Dao in a very short period of time and with little effort, making Dao stones ideal treasures for both cultivating and breaking through bottlenecks. D- and C-Grades went crazy over them.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The Sage had also explained a few more things about these stones.

Due to their usefulness and ease of creation, Dao stones had become something like currency for high-grade cultivators. One could exchange Dao stones for all sorts of treasures.

Of course, for every advantage that Dao stones had, they had an equal number of disadvantages. For one, creating them was highly inefficient. A middle C-Grade would need to spend an entire month to create a single Dao stone instead of spending that time cultivating. Then, if the same C-Grade used the stone they had created, the benefits they would receive would be roughly equal to three days of cultivation. Ninety percent of the energy was wasted.

Generally, only people who had reached a dead-end in their cultivation would spend their time creating Dao stones. Either that, or cultivators in urgent need of money.

Jack now had two stonesone that he got from the Church, and one generously donated by Ley Vice. He would also receive one stone per year as a low-ranked outer disciple. If he wanted to spend Dao stones to break throughhe estimated he could use up to twenty before his Dao Tree was unable to absorb anymore. Twenty Dao stones would give him the best chances at succeeding.

Eighteen years, he thought, pursing his lips. Thats too long. There has to be a better way.

He could offer his services to other cultivators in exchange for Dao stones, but it would be hard for him to earn enough that way. After all, a Dao stone was very precious.

Another way would be to borrow from people he knew or even strangers, offering to repay them after reaching the C-Gradebut Jack didnt want to be indebted to strangers. It was a risk. One of them may come later and ask for something Jack wasnt willing to do, and refusing would mean denying his favora behavior that wasnt aligned with the Fist.

As for borrowing from his friends, he was also unwilling to do that. Even if someone did possess Dao stoneslike the Sage, who was mysterious enough to hide ten of them in his underwearthey were highly valuable, and he wasnt sure when or how he could repay them.

The only person he considered asking was the Head Envoy, who was certainly rich enough to not care about twenty Dao stones. However, not only were the two of them just acquaintances, but the Head Envoy had questionably raised Jack through the ranking obelisk. Since Jack wasnt sure about that mans intentions, he didnt want to owe him a debt.

In a few words, there was no one he could borrow from.

If only I could earn them through bets, that would be the dream he thought, sighing. The one hed gotten from Ley Vice was only a lucky break. All sorts of coincidences had to come together for that to happen. If he tried to consciously trick and rob other C-Grades of their stones, not only would it probably backfire, but it was also dishonest.

Finally, creating his own Dao stones instead of cultivating was impossible as he hadnt yet reached the C-Grade.

Therefore, his only good option was to check if the Black Hole Church had any sort of quest system, where he could complete missions for payment in Dao stones.

Jack opened his eyes. His Dao Tree was already fully grownmeditation had little meaning.

Life moves in circles, he muttered. I ruled a planet and broke a galaxy, then suddenly, I am poor again.

As he opened his eyes, so did Brock. The two were sitting cross-legged, facing each other. However, while Jacks meditation was mostly spent worrying over his finances, Brock was brimming was joy. He had not reached the peak D-Grade yet. He could nourish his Dao Tree by simply assimilating the surrounding Dao and pulling it inside himself, a process that was far more effective here than on Earth.

Since Jack couldnt cultivate, hed even let Brock sit on the cabins magical meditation mat.

Bro! Brock said. This is so good!

Yes, Brock, Im sure its great, Jack replied, not even pretending to be happy. Money really was the bane of existence.

However, how could Brock not see through his brothers thoughts? He jumped up and placed a hand on Jacks shoulders. No worry, he said with a reassuring smile. All good. World gives solutions. Hakuna matata.

Jack opened his mouth to respond, then heard the last few words and chuckled. Where did you even hear that?

Dog bro.

Of course. Jack smiled. Thanks, Brock. I can always count on you.

Brock gave Jack a generous thumbs-up, then returned to meditation. Jack stood up and dusted himself offthough there was no dust on the Cathedral. I will look around a bit, he said. See if I can find a way to earn money.

Have fun bro.

Thanks.

Jack reached the door and opened it, coming face-to-face with the Sage and an extremely wide young man. He was a human, just looking like hed eaten three boars for breakfast. His belly flaps jiggled as he walked, his forehead was drenched in sweat, and his Asian features were so deformed that his eyes were barely visible between his forehead andupper lip?

Though this man looked slightly familiar, Jack couldnt place it.

Um, hi, he said. Im Jack.

The Sage chuckled.

Your mother is Jack! replied the fat man, seeming profoundly pissed. You dont need to introduce yourself to me. You know me. Im Dorman Whistles!

Jack blinked. The slim, athletic teenager had turned into this mountain of meat? Yeah, of course I remember, he replied. Youre looking great.

Great? Ohhh, Ill beat you to a pulp!